Fabia Mk1 61 plate TSi 1.2  very low mileage.  Always sailed through the MOT every year with no issues but this time failed on "fractured coil spring" which wasn't expected at all such a very low use car. It's even got the original brake pads. The car has never needed any repairs other than a light bulb and brake fluid/ oil change etc.

So OK get the same MOT & service centre place do the necessary work. What could possibly go wrong?  

Well quite a lot did. The shortened version is they've mucked up my car. The moment I drove away immediately noticed very noticeably the steering wheel skewed position offset to the right. 

Now I've got a car no longer drives 'right' any more. Above all more sensitive to changes in road camber and seems to continually be pulling to the left the whole time, it most definitely never did that before.  Yes I can see how pulling to left at all times could well be useful safety feature in case fall asleep at the wheel but I'd prefer to have the car as it was. I have had all the usual "get the tracking done I know a good place" "swap the tyres round" and "it's meant to pull left that's what road camber is for" none of which isn't helpful.

What's obvious is they've done something to the car, something must be bent or not put back together right or parts missed off or a combination of because the car wasn't like that before.

 

Well I've been underneath and looked and sure enough, a missing bracket one side holding a brake pipe and flexy lines not clipped back into their holders, so that rang alarm bells really loud.  

I want to know now what it is they've done exactly to muck it up. Asking them is out the question of course, we all know they'll just make up lies or say what they think the customer wants to hear etc etc.  So I know I'm on my own with this now.

So I've looked in more detail underneath and seen this on offside. 

(You might have noticed the brake flexy pipe is on the wrong side of the suspension leg  yikes!)

 

And the nearside is this....

 

I can see about 6 mm of difference between sides. 

 

Now this does look like the cause of the steering wheel position skewed to the right and the new pulling to the left. 

Has anyone else seen this? 

 

do you know if they did a wheel allignment after the suspe4nsion work as this would lead to your steering wheel being off allignment if they have not done a wheel allignment.

To add... the O/S you'll see a lot of CV grease.  One of the other things this "MOT & repairs centre" did for me was give me the MOTd car with a broken CV boot and than had the cheek to say they'll replace it FOC. So could be they were in a hurry doing it obviously didn't clean up afterwards. 

Just now, Stewartasb said:

do you know if they did a wheel allignment after the suspe4nsion work 

Very very unlikely.  If they did they would had itemised it to inflate the price charged. 

I think I might be answering my own question here. I've just sketched out what I think might be going on. Purple colour exaggerated.

 

The suspension leg compresses OK to equal length both sides (weight of car), but the nearside stubaxle/hub/wheel-bearing-housing they'd positioned it much lower than the offside one. You can see the markings in the rust clearly that it's not been put back as they found it.

The mind boggles how they couldn't have seen these markings and re-used them to put it back the way they found it. Or at least put paint marks or something. 

I'm sure you're right. What shocking workmanship.

☹️

You need to take it back, point out the failings and tell them it doesn't drive straight and to sort it out or you'll get an independent inspection and complain to trading standards.

If the nearside strut was dropped relative to the steering knuckle till the hole in the plate lined up with the pinch bolt it would be sticking way out the bottom and hitting the CV joint.

 

Unless there is another hole which we cannot see, it really needs both photos to be taken from the same angle, the better of the two is the second one.

 

Most expedient is to follow Sepulchraves advice.

 

The 6mm height difference would not explain the steering wheel angular position nor the pull to one side.

 

I wonder if they could not break the track rod end ball joint or it was spinning with the nyloc so they unscrewed the track rod from it? The one in the photo does not look like its been touched.

Edited 24 October, 20223 yr by J.R.

From what I'm seen so far with missing parts loose brake and ABS lines and other things I've not mentioned I'm very reluctant to let them get near my car ever again.  Shoddy workmanship definitely. Appalling. I think they may also have omitted the rubber bump stop on the offside shock absorber, the rubber dust cover is flapping around with nothing to clip onto at the bottom.  

I think I'm on my own with this, I'm sure they're just going to deny everything if I got an inspection done they'll say they're not responsible for what happens after the car leaves their premises.

Trading Standards yes.  And report them to DVSA for MOT fraud for letting me drive away with MOT failure defects. 

@ J.R. 

Hitting the CV joint.  That might had been how they split the rubber boot. 

The two photos are one of each side from about the same angle. They're still from a video I took.

If this 6mm difference isn't enough to cause the problem then there must be something else bent or twisted or missing , and I expect it's beyond reach of Sepulchraves advice.

 

Good idea about them not able to break the trackrod end and choose to unscrew it right out, but there's no markings on the thread either side.  They might had left the rack still connected and extracted the suspension leg.    Disturbing the toe seeing would had explained the crooked wheel but not the pulling to one side that wasn't happening before.  It seems too much a coincidence the wheel skewed to right by the same amount pulling to left.  The car is noticeably more sensitive to changes in road camber now. 

 

Edited 24 October, 20223 yr by marcb

Having looked again at videos, no tooling marks either side the track rod hexagon bar part. It would to had been spun round and round lots of times, no first few threads disturbed next to nut and no tooling mark on the nut to slacken it either.  Looks like the steering was left connected and suspension leg somehow pulled clear out the ring clamp.  Maybe the steering gear had been bent downwards.

I've driven the car in the rain since taking the videos. 

 

Edited 24 October, 20223 yr by marcb

1 hour ago, marcb said:

the rubber dust cover is flapping around with nothing to clip onto at the bottom.  

That is normal I had to conclude after spending hours trying to clip mine onto the new suspension struts.

 

I think they are just intended to cover the strut against dust etc during the normal range of suspension travel and to lift off when the vehicle is jacked up and suspension on full droop.

 

Would they for any reason have dropped or loosened the crossmember? I cant think why but if that is replaced misaligned from the correct position (there is a huge clearance around the bolts) your vehicle will steer and behave in exactly the manner you describe.

 

When I refitted mine after a clutch change I thought I had realigned the clamping washers with the road dirt marks but got it slightly wrong, the steering wheel was correctly aligned at standstill and central to the rack travel, wheels parallel & facing forward but actually not parallel to the rear axle and at 90° to the thrust line of the vehicle, I had to drive with constant anti clockwise pressure on the steering wheel with it at an angle to prevent it driving into the ditch (driving on right in France).

 

I used a laser spirit level to align both front & rear axles as they were both out but the majority was the front after my removing the crossmember.

The strut not being pushed far enough down in the hub carrier has got me puzzled because the pinch bolt won't go in unless the hole in the plate on the strut is aligned with the hole in the hub carrier.

 

 

Edited 24 October, 20223 yr by TMB

Seeing as the strut looks newer than the other side, it looks as though it's been replaced at some point? I think maybe that particular brand of strut just has less length at the bottom by design, making it look like it's not fully home. Judging by the rust mark, it looks like it's only ever been down another few millimetres, which could be just a bit of slack on the plate hole?

 

As for the flexi hose - it beggars belief that they've let you drive away with the hose postioned on the wrong side of the strut. That is downright dangerous and crass stupidity.

 

This is why I try to do all my own work and HATE using garages.

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by TMB

And as J.R. says, the dust boot is meant to just hang loose at the bottom. This was mine after replacing my spring...

 

Edited 24 October, 20223 yr by TMB

It does appear that some replacement non-genuine struts have slightly less tube length at the bottom after the bracket (it won't affect function, though).

 

Genuine VAG...

 

 

Aftermarket...

 

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by TMB

Won't be any aftermarket parts on this car this is the first time had mechanical work, the car's like a time capsule spent most of its life garaged. The only thing been replaced is pair front tyres and one tyre at the back which had full tread depth but had an age crack (MOT advisory each year). Low mileage it's still on the original front brake pads. Why I'm now doubts whether there really was a fractured spring in the first place, they refused to show me the ones they took off said they "threw them away". 

 

"the dust boot is meant to just hang loose at the bottom" 

On my example the N/S shock the rubber dust boot neatly unclips and clips back down onto a circular plastic lip and it stays put there (while the car raised and fully extended). But the O/S (where there's missing parts) there's no lip at all to clip onto, the boot flails around like the photo posted. Maybe after all the years the plastic became brittle and it "fell off and got lost". Something missing there, it's difficult to believe the car was built that way and even less that there'd been an aftermarket shock on that side. That would had been before I got the car which was almost brand new at the time. I would had thought if it was loose all this time there would signs of water staining on the black paint. 

 

The garage disturbing the cross member? I wish I knew, god knows what they'd done to it, that could explain a lot. I'll have to take a look at the bolts for tooling marks and look for signs of put back different place.  

 

I see on the strut photos posted above, there's a hole the clamp bolt passes through. I guess the hole is to help get the wheel alignment in the ball park during assembly (and I guess the hole's position might even be calibrated at factory?). In my case I suspect the idiot mechanic wouldn't had respected that at all, likely bent it out of shape and render it useless. 

 

 

Well, as I said, judging from your pic, the strut has only ever been pushed into the hub carrier another few millimetres, because you can see the clean ring where it's been. If it's a genuine strut, I can't explain why it's like that when the other one is pushed down much further, as the hole in the plate dictates the position.

 

I notice that one of your track rods has quite a bit more threads exposed than the other (I count about 13 threads on one and about 8 on the other). That means the steering isn't centralised as there should be roughly equal threads on both sides. The steering needs to be centralised before setting the tracking. Then, during adjustment, both trackrods should be turned equally, otherwise the steering rack won't be centralised. I remember years ago, having cars tracked by 'mechanics' who only turned one trackrod and you ended up with the steering wheel way off centre. The angles on turning are then not right.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, marcb said:

"the dust boot is meant to just hang loose at the bottom" 

On my example the N/S shock the rubber dust boot neatly unclips and clips back down onto a circular plastic lip and it stays put there (while the car raised and fully extended). But the O/S (where there's missing parts) there's no lip at all to clip onto, the boot flails around like the photo posted.

 

OK, well it has no consequence at all. Not worth worrying about. The vast majority of cars just have the gaiter loose at the bottom. When the suspension is down on the road, the damper rod is more than adequately covered. That's all it needs. Years ago, cars would be driving around with those gaiters completely shredded. It wasn't even an MOT fail.

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by TMB

• Quote

   

   

2 hours ago, TMB said:

Spoiler

1. Quote

   Spoiler

    

    

    

 

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by marcb
trying to delete accidental posting

Posting I was middle of writing suddenly posted by itself while I was trimming size, on the tablet I was using at the time the green 'submit reply' button suddenly jumped right under where my finger was pressing 'delete'. Then wouldn't let me delete the posting. And Edit only lets you delete text and any accidently added sections won't delete once added. So starting again...

 

Quote

" If it's a genuine strut, I can't explain why it's like that when the other one is pushed down much further, as the hole in the plate dictates the position."

Me neither. The hole in plate dictates position is probably bent or distorted out of normal place by the big hammer or crowbar or whatever car mechanics use. What's clear is the car hadn't been reassembled correctly so all can do now is speculate.

 

Quote

"one of your track rods has quite a bit more threads exposed than the other (I count about 13 threads on one and about 8 on the other)."

Yes as you point out there's quite a difference in (8/13) threads. I'd not considered this because I've not seen signs the track rod end threads been disturbed, there's no tooling marks on the nuts or rod hexagon sections, in fact signs of disturbance right here was the very first thing I'd looked for.  If they had disturbed the track ends (somehow managing not to leave tooling marks) then it beggars belief why they would even want to disturb the track rods anyway? Unscrewing one right off the rack would be more time and work for them to do than popping it off at the joint with a popper. ...Unless they were deliberately trying to muck up the car for some reason. I certainly hadn't asked for toe setting. Just wanted the minor MOT failure (supposedly) fractured spring done nothing else.

 

So it seems then it's normal for these cars to drive fine and straight .... up until the first ever mechanical intervention. I'm very lucky here as I'd escaped this until now being such a low use car. From that point forward there's then bits missed off and the car pulls to the left. I can see now how the car is so sensitive to wheel alignment going off, reading about plates that move position if the mounting bolts are slackened. I imagine these cars when they're built in the factory are put on a jig to align everything then all the bolts are tightened. Woe betide anyone slackening off these bolts after that.

 

I think the take-away here is don't let mechanics touch your car, and I've learned the lesson is if you have a time capsule low use car low mileage and you ever get an MOT failure for front suspension: Get a second opinion first before anyone unscrews any nut bolt or screw as the car is never the same afterwards. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by marcb

I expect they bent/brutalised that tab to get the bolt through it. Don't despair, just fix each issue one by one. 🙂

With the brake hose, you may be able to detach the caliper and send it round, to avoid opening the hydraulics, not sure.

28 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

With the brake hose, you may be able to detach the caliper and send it round, to avoid opening the hydraulics, not sure.

I think at this stage I've got less to risk by opening the hydraulics now than detaching the caliper. Some caliper bolts have threadlock gel applied so I'd prefer not to touch the caliper unless neccesary. My reasoning is there's an (still undiagnosed) issue with the brakes that I haven't mentioned: they seemed to had put an air lock (implying they must had removed a brake pipe). I think airlock because after they gave me the keys and MOT certificate and first drove away the brake pedal response was spongy and red brake and ABS and traction control lights all blinking on and off like a xmas tree. This was also at the same time the broken CV boot was splashing grease everywhere.

At this moment the pedal slowly sinks to the floor while holding on a hill and there's a springyness in pedal movement neither wasn't there before the MOT.

 

Edited 25 October, 20223 yr by marcb

OK, fair enough, just be aware that there's likely to a raised area of corrosion all around where the lower washer of the banjo bolt sits on the caliper.

If removed and replaced straddling any of this raised area, tha washer will struggle to seal.

1 minute ago, Breezy_Pete said:

OK, fair enough, just be aware that there's likely to a raised area of corrosion all around where the lower washer of the banjo bolt sits on the caliper.

If removed and replaced straddling any of this raised area, tha washer will struggle to seal.

Very good advice indeed. Clean around the area before open and closely inspect and prepare the sealing faces before reclosing.